We Wear the Mask: The Appendix
by DarkTwistedSisters
Summary: Nothing you need to read unless you'd like more information on the characters or our original plot in our Disney Descendants Fanfiction. Sometimes we post a letter or information in the story and remove it after a few weeks, now we have a place to keep it without interrupting the flow of the story. Got a question for us related to WWtM? Post it and we'll answer it here. :)
1. T Introspection

Hey our lovely readers!

We know there's been some confusion about T, and to be fair to you guys, that was us dropping the ball. So we'd like to take this time to help clear up any confusion or misunderstandings.

When we first introduced T in the story, we used the pronoun _he_ when referring to the character because we wanted there to be an air of mystery to this person that only identified themselves as T.

The VKs that interacted with T saw a mask that Faustina wore, a personality that she created so that she could leave her room and meet people. At this point, she is a girl who simply didn't correct the people she met when they assumed she was a boy. She was happy with the misconception, it suited her needs.

Slowly she came to enjoy her life as T far more than the torment she endured as Faustina. T was learning things that contradicted everything Frollo said, and each new fact was like another piece getting pulled from a Jenga tower; eventually the lies weren't stable enough. Faustina, empowered by her life as T, confronted her father with disastrous results.

And that was the real turning point for T. Waking up chained to a wall with all suspicions confirmed was too much for a teenager. (Would be to much for almost anyone.) Faustina broke.

In times of stress people react in many different ways, but the action is always something to help ease the suffering. In this case, Faustina 'died', becoming T instead. T was stronger, braver, and, more importantly, was free to do whatever the hell _he_ wanted, when _she_ couldn't.

We believe what happened was that T compartmentalized the abuse and trauma she suffered at the hands of her father, and by compartmentalizing she was able to more fully believe in her own mask. At this point, T became her whole personality. He was able to look at what happened to Faustina, learn from it, but not have to admit that it happened to him.

To all of our readers, we understand gender roles in society is a hot button issue right now, and we didn't mean to confuse or offend. Twisted just really fell in love with the concept of T without thinking about RL. She really just thought it was a logical way for a character to react in that situation. Our world is pretty male dominated, but the United States of Auradon, A country made up of disney ideals, is absolutely chauvinistic. It's not a stretch for someone observing people on the street, with no context, to draw that conclusion. Men are strong, women are weak, which breaks down into females are the ones who needed to be protected because they're an easy target.

(If you find yourself asking but wait, where the hell did this clearly sheltered girl ever get the idea to start cross dressing in a Disney themed universe… **Spoiler warning** :)

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Gaston use to make Gil dress up as a girl and call him Gilly as punishment for being weaker than his siblings. Yes, Gil and T have a history.

Yes, this is something that will be discovered in the story.

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(SAFE) :)

It even makes sense that Faustina could identify with that concept. She was a female being 'protected' from the rest of the world by a father who abused her with no consequences. It was for all these reasons she decided to dress up as a boy when she finally worked up the nerve to venture out of her room.

Can you just imagine her glee when the first person she spoke to referred to her as a boy? The triumph that must have been for her? The relief of not having the gender limitations she believed were the driving force in the world they lived in?

Obviously T was in for a lot of confusion and revelations as she met people that didn't hold the same views she did, and yet her own view of how the world worked was never fully changed.

So in short,

T is just a very broken cis girl with very skewed perceptions on the male female dynamics. She found comfort in a hard time by burying herself in a mask she created. She's also confused about any type of interpersonal relationship, whether it be of the sexual or familiar variety due to her upbringing. Not many of the VKs are good at identifying these relationships. T's mask just hides the most and she's worn it so long she forgets it is just that; a mask.

This is one of the many reasons we named this work 'We Wear the Mask'.

We hope this helps to clarify any T related confusion. If you have any other T related questions hit us up and we'll be more than happy to answer.

Also, did this actually help? Would you like to see us do these pull aside talks with other characters? Let us know :)


	2. The Letter to our Readers

Hey guys,

We're so sorry that we haven't published a chapter in two weeks. We ran into a snag while writing... In short... We fucked up. We had to go back and do some rewrites. Unfortunately, with the way we write, we need to finish the 'book' before we dare to go back and polish the new edits.

We're nearly finished though! Only a few more chapters to clean up and rewrite and then We Wear the Mask will be a completed work.

Which leads me to an announcement... We Wear the Mask is going to be a multi book series fan-fiction. We have a lot of amazing ideas on where we want to see these characters go, and a lot of original plot to work with as well as some amazingly cute fluffy scenes. We've already got so much started and so much planned. We're excited about finishing up this book and getting back to work on the next one.

Speaking of the next one, has anyone else seen the trailer release of Descendants 3? It looks amazing! Go watch it now if you haven't! Next week we want to talk about it! Theories guys... Theories! We have some... We know you will too :)

And in honor of Descendants 3 coming out in Summer 2019, we will be be publishing the first chapter of 'WWTM: With Torn and Bleeding Hearts We Smile' In December as a Christmas gift to you all. Yay!

One more thing, To apologize for the lack of a new chapter, we'll be posting an introspection on T. If you have any other characters you'd like to see us write about, or have questions you would like for us to try and answer, now's the time to start thinking them up.

Again guys, we're so sorry about not getting chapters out to you guys, but we would rather give you what quality we can over quantity and speed.

Lots of love and hopes for your understanding...

Dark & Twisted


	3. A note of critique

Hey Descendents fans!

I know we've been gone a long time, but hopefully here soon we'll be able to get back to what Twisted and I love, writing together.

I wanted to take the time to address a few concerns I've been seeing in comments, reviews and messages. Hopefully clear the air before we get back to work.

I know the beginning of We Wear the Mask jumps around a lot. You guys have to remember though, we started this as a collection of one shots. We just had small snippets of plot bunnies running around in our heads.

The first short is about a plot bunny we thought of when we were first thinking of characters we wanted to write. Because both of us believe that the only true way to add an OC is for them to have affected the world in some way. So as Hyades was being thought up, we started to really think about why Hades, a God, was resigned to let Maleficent rule the isle. Well... Maybe he made a deal with her... Okay, let's roll with that. So how would having a daughter affect that? Long thought lines later we came up with the idea that Hyades and Evie probably had a lot in common, so they would have gotten along as young children. Evie being banished would have upset Hyades... Boom, the Almost Banished was born.

In what can hurt a Demigod, we continued to explore the differences Hades having a daughter would have made. If you go by mythology, Ursula is a descendant of Poseidon, making Hades Ursula Uncle. So we explored how that relationship might have worked with Hyades and Uma. Another one shot, short story was born.

The reason that we did more of Hyades early on was because of character ease of access. Hyades was free to roam the isle. T was not. The Stalker and the Thief was one of the first times 'T' made an appearance. As you read later,

***Possible spoiler***

Gil also has a memory of T from a younger age, but we already knew that T's character was complicated, so we didn't want to add to that with Gil meeting an in between character Tina.

In all Honesty, we never expected for this to take on the life that it did. We had planned to create little one shot, episodic stories. But then we found a plot forming. What would happen to these characters once the Rotten Four left? Because we also changed the villainy level of the villains, how would that change what happened? As we worked to answer those questions, the story began to have a flow to it.

So, yeah. It does jump around a lot in the beginning. Should we move the 'Slice of Life' chapters to another title? Should we better advertise when that change happens? Let us know your opinion. We know this story is a bit unorthodox, but isn't that what FF is all about?

If you've ever looked into our other work, Bakers, Hunters and Pie, you know that we take pride in our characters growing and evolving. To the readers who find Hyades whinny or boring, her character does evolve. I'm also trying to work to add the levels of her personality to everything I write with her. She is kind of a loner, very independent and very driven to do what she thinks is the best or is right. I'm sorry that these strong willed traites haven't been translating well in my writing of her, so I promise to work on that.

There's nothing I can do about her personality shift on the ship though, imagine being surrounded by things that can burn, having to keep control of your temper, and constantly being told what to do when you never really signed up for any of that. Hyades values her privacy, and she has none. Again, I'm sorry that things haven't been translating well.

One of the things I'm suggesting to Twisted is that we, together, read back through everything we've already posted and find ways to make it better. Not change anything, but write in such a way that we are clearer about what is happening in the chapter, and better defining the characters. Would that be something that you all would be interested in?

Anyway, please continue to comment and review! I do read them, and I do take them under advisement. While I understand that we'll never make everyone happy, constructive critique is so very helpful. And if we can change something to make it more understandable, we will.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day, thank you for taking the time to read this.

-Dark


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